Moral skepticism

Moral skepticism (or moral scepticism) is a class of metaethical theories all members of which entail that no one has any moral knowledge. Many moral skeptics also make the stronger, modal claim that moral knowledge is impossible. Moral skepticism is particularly opposed to moral realism: the view that there are knowable and objective moral truths.

Contents

Moral skepticism divides into three subclasses: moral error theory (or moral nihilism), epistemological moral skepticism, and noncognitivism.[1] All three of these theories share the same conclusions, which are:

(a) we are never justified in believing that moral claims (claims of the form "state of affairs x is good," "action y is morally obligatory," etc.) are true and, even more so

(b) we never know that any moral claim is true.

However, each method arrives at (a) and (b) by different routes.

Moral error theory holds that we do not know that any moral claim is true because

(i) all moral claims are false,

(ii) we have reason to believe that all moral claims are false, and so, because

(iii) since we are not justified in believing any claim we have reason to deny, we are not justified in believing any moral claims.

Epistemological moral skepticism is a subclass of theory, the members of which include Pyrrhonian moral skepticism and dogmatic moral skepticism. All members of epistemological moral skepticism share two things in common: first they acknowledge that we are unjustified in believing any moral claim, and second, they are agnostic on whether (i) is true (i.e. on whether all moral claims are false).

Pyrrhonian moral skepticism holds that the reason we are unjustified in believing any moral claim is that it is irrational for us to believe either that any moral claim is true or that any moral claim is false. Thus, in addition to being agnostic on whether (i) is true, Pyrrhonian moral skepticism denies (ii).

Dogmatic moral skepticism, on the other hand, affirms (ii) and cites (ii)'s truth as the reason we are unjustified in believing any moral claim.

Finally, Noncognitivism holds that we can never know that any moral claim is true because moral claims are incapable of being true or false (they are not truth-apt). Instead, moral claims are imperatives (e.g. "Don't steal babies!"), expressions of emotion (e.g. "stealing babies: Boo!"), or expressions of "pro-attitudes" ("I do not believe that babies should be stolen.")

Moral error theory is a position characterized by its commitment to two propositions: (i) all moral claims are false and (ii) we have reason to believe that all moral claims are false, the most famous moral error theorist is J. L. Mackie, who defended the metaethical view in Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977). Mackie has been interpreted as giving two arguments for moral error theory.

The first argument people attribute to Mackie, often called the argument from queerness,[2] holds that moral claims imply motivation internalism (the doctrine that "It is necessary and a priori that any agent who judges that one of his available actions is morally obligatory will have some (defeasible) motivation to perform that action" [3]). Because motivation internalism is false, however, so too are all moral claims.

The other argument often attributed to Mackie, often called the argument from disagreement,[3] maintains that any moral claim (e.g. "Killing babies is wrong") entails a correspondent "reasons claim" ("one has reason not to kill babies"). Put another way, if "killing babies is wrong" is true then everybody has a reason to not kill babies, this includes the psychopath who takes great pleasure from killing babies, and is utterly miserable when he does not have their blood on his hands. But, surely, (if we assume that he will suffer no reprisals) this psychopath has every reason to kill babies, and no reason not to do so. All moral claims are thus false.

All versions of epistemological moral skepticism hold that we are unjustified in believing any moral proposition. However, in contradistinction to moral error theory, epistemological moral skeptical arguments for this conclusion do not include the premise that "all moral claims are false." For example, Michael Ruse [4] gives what Richard Joyce [3] calls an "evolutionary argument" for the conclusion that we are unjustified in believing any moral proposition. He argues that we have evolved to believe moral propositions because our believing the same enhances our genetic fitness (makes it more likely that we will reproduce successfully). However, our believing these propositions would enhance our fitness even if they were all false (they would make us more cooperative, etc.). Thus, our moral beliefs are unresponsive to evidence; they are analogous to the beliefs of a paranoiac. As a paranoiac is plainly unjustified in believing his conspiracy theories, so too are we unjustified in believing moral propositions. We therefore have reason to jettison our moral beliefs.

Criticisms of moral skepticism come primarily from moral realists, the moral realist argues that there is in fact good reason to believe that there are objective moral truths and that we are justified in holding many moral beliefs. One moral realist response to moral error theory holds that it "proves too much"—if moral claims are false because they entail that we have reasons to do certain things regardless of our preferences, then so too are "hypothetical imperatives" (e.g. "if you want to get your hair-cut you ought to go to the barber"). This is because all hypothetical imperatives imply that "we have reason to do that which will enable us to accomplish our ends" and so, like moral claims, they imply that we have reason to do something regardless of our preferences. [6]

If moral claims are false because they have this implication, then so too are hypothetical imperatives, but hypothetical imperatives are true. Thus the argument from the non-instantiation of (what Mackie terms) "objective prescriptivity" for moral error theory fails. Russ Shafer-Landau and Daniel Callcut have each outlined anti-skeptical strategies. Callcut argues that moral skepticism should be scrutinized in introductory ethics classes in order to get across the point that "if all views about morality, including the skeptical ones, face difficulties, then adopting a skeptical position is not an escape from difficulty." [7]

1.
Logical consequence
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Logical consequence is a fundamental concept in logic, which describes the relationship between statements that holds true when one statement logically follows from one or more statements. A valid logical argument is one in which the conclusions are entailed by the premises, the philosophical analysis of logical consequence involves the questions, In what sense does a conclusion follow from its premises. And What does it mean for a conclusion to be a consequence of premises, All of philosophical logic is meant to provide accounts of the nature of logical consequence and the nature of logical truth. Logical consequence is necessary and formal, by way of examples that explain with formal proof and models of interpretation. A sentence is said to be a consequence of a set of sentences, for a given language, if and only if. The most widely prevailing view on how to best account for logical consequence is to appeal to formality and this is to say that whether statements follow from one another logically depends on the structure or logical form of the statements without regard to the contents of that form. Syntactic accounts of logical consequence rely on schemes using inference rules, for instance, we can express the logical form of a valid argument as, All A are B. All C are A. Therefore, all C are B and this argument is formally valid, because every instance of arguments constructed using this scheme are valid. This is in contrast to an argument like Fred is Mikes brothers son, if you know that Q follows logically from P no information about the possible interpretations of P or Q will affect that knowledge. Our knowledge that Q is a consequence of P cannot be influenced by empirical knowledge. Deductively valid arguments can be known to be so without recourse to experience, however, formality alone does not guarantee that logical consequence is not influenced by empirical knowledge. So the a property of logical consequence is considered to be independent of formality. The two prevailing techniques for providing accounts of logical consequence involve expressing the concept in terms of proofs, the study of the syntactic consequence is called proof theory whereas the study of semantic consequence is called model theory. A formula A is a syntactic consequence within some formal system F S of a set Γ of formulas if there is a proof in F S of A from the set Γ. Γ ⊢ F S A Syntactic consequence does not depend on any interpretation of the formal system, or, in other words, the set of the interpretations that make all members of Γ true is a subset of the set of the interpretations that make A true. Modal accounts of logical consequence are variations on the basic idea, Γ ⊢ A is true if and only if it is necessary that if all of the elements of Γ are true. Alternatively, Γ ⊢ A is true if and only if it is impossible for all of the elements of Γ to be true, such accounts are called modal because they appeal to the modal notions of logical necessity and logical possibility. Consider the modal account in terms of the argument given as an example above, the conclusion is a logical consequence of the premises because we cant imagine a possible world where all frogs are green, Kermit is a frog, and Kermit is not green

2.
Pyrrho
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Pyrrho, was a Greek philosopher of Classical Antiquity and is credited as being the first Greek skeptic philosopher. Pyrrho was from Elis, on the Ionian Sea, Diogenes Laertius, quoting from Apollodorus of Athens, says that Pyrrho was at first a painter, and that pictures by him were exhibited in the gymnasium at Elis. Later he was diverted to philosophy by the works of Democritus and his doctrines were recorded in the writings of his pupil Timon of Phlius. Unfortunately these works are mostly lost, today Pyrrhos ideas are known mainly through the book Outlines of Pyrrhonism written by the Greek physician Sextus Empiricus. Pyrrho is renowned for creating the first formal approach to skepticism in Western Philosophy, Pyrrho summarized his philosophy as follows, Whoever wants to live well must consider these three questions, First, how are pragmata by nature. Secondly, what attitude should we adopt towards them, thirdly, what will be the outcome for those who have this attitude. Pyrrhos answer is that As for pragmata they are all adiaphora, astathmēta, therefore, neither our sense-perceptions nor our doxai tell us the truth or lie, so we certainly should not rely on them. Rather, we should be adoxastous, aklineis, and akradantous, pyrrhonians can be subdivided into those who are ephectic, zetetic, or aporetic. Callisthenes Greco-Buddhism Nausiphanes This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Algra, K. Barnes, J. Mansfeld, J. and Schofield, the Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,1999. Annas, Julia and Barnes, Jonathan, The Modes of Scepticism, Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations, Pyrrhos Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford,2015. Bett, Richard, Aristocles on Timon on Pyrrho, The Text, Its Logic and its Credibility Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 12, bett, Richard, What did Pyrrho Think about the Nature of the Divine and the Good. Bett, Richard, Pyrrho, His Antecedents, and His Legacy, burnyeat, Myles, The Skeptical Tradition, Berkeley, University of California Press,1983. Burnyeat, Myles and Frede, Michael, The Original Sceptics, A Controversy, Indianapolis, doomen, Jasper, The Problems of Scepticism Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy 10, 36-52. Halkias, Georgios, The Self-immolation of Kalanos and other Luminous Encounters among Greeks, journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, Vol. VIII,2015, 163-186. Kuzminski, Adrian, Pyrrhonism, How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism, Lanham, Hellenistic Philosophy, Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, University of California Press,1986. Long, A. A. and Sedley, David, The Hellenistic Philosophers, Striker, Gisela, On the difference between the Pyrrhonists and the Academics in G. Striker, Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,1996, 135-149. Striker, Gisela, Sceptical strategies in G. Striker, Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,1996, 92-115

3.
David Hume
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David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of radical philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. Humes empiricist approach to philosophy places him with John Locke, Francis Bacon, beginning with his A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume strove to create a total naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Humes compatibilist theory of free will takes causal determinism as fully compatible with human freedom, Kant himself credited Hume as the spur to his philosophical thought who had awakened him from his dogmatic slumbers. Arthur Schopenhauer once declared there is more to be learned from each page of David Hume than from the collected philosophical works of Hegel, Herbart. Hume is thus regarded as a pivotal figure in the history of philosophical thought. David Hume was the second of two born to Joseph Home of Ninewells, an advocate, and his wife The Hon. Katherine. He was born on 26 April 1711 in a tenement on the side of the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh. Humes father died when Hume was a child, just after his birthday, and he was raised by his mother. He changed the spelling of his name in 1734, because of the fact that his surname Home, throughout his life Hume, who never married, spent time occasionally at his family home at Ninewells in Berwickshire, which had belonged to his family since the sixteenth century. His finances as a man were very slender. His family was not rich and, as a younger son and he was therefore forced to make a living somehow. Hume attended the University of Edinburgh at the early age of twelve at a time when fourteen was normal. He had little respect for the professors of his time, telling a friend in 1735 that there is nothing to be learnt from a Professor, which is not to be met with in Books. Aged around 18, he made a discovery that opened up to him a new Scene of Thought. He did not recount what this scene was, and commentators have offered a variety of speculations, due to this inspiration, Hume set out to spend a minimum of ten years reading and writing. He soon came to the verge of a breakdown, suffering from what a doctor diagnosed as the Disease of the Learned. Hume wrote that it started with a coldness, which he attributed to a Laziness of Temper, later, some scurvy spots broke out on his fingers. This was what persuaded Humes physician to make his diagnosis, Hume wrote that he went under a Course of Bitters and Anti-Hysteric Pills, taken along with a pint of claret every day

4.
J. L. Mackie
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John Leslie Mackie, usually cited as J. L. Mackie, was an Australian philosopher, originally from Sydney. His most widely known, Ethics, Inventing Right and Wrong and it goes on to argue that because of this ethics must be invented, rather than discovered. Mackie was born 25 August 1917 in Killara, Sydney and he graduated from the University of Sydney in 1938 after studying under John Anderson, sharing the medal in philosophy with eminent jurist Harold Glass. Mackie received the Wentworth Travelling Fellowship to study Greats at Oriel College, Oxford, during World War II Mackie served with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in the Middle East and Italy, and was mentioned in dispatches. He was professor of philosophy at the University of Otago in New Zealand from 1955 to 1959, in 1969, he gave a lecture entitled What’s Really Wrong with Phenomenalism. At the British Academy as part of its annual Philosophical Lectures series, in 1974, he became a fellow of the British Academy. He died in Oxford on 12 December 1981, Mackie is said to have been capable of expressing total disagreement in such a genial way that the person being addressed might mistake the comment for a compliment. This personal style is exemplified by the words from the preface to Mackies Ethics, Inventing Right and Wrong. Mackie married Joan Meredith in 1947, one of Mackies three daughters, Penelope Mackie, also became a philosopher. She lectured in Philosophy at the University of Birmingham from 1994 to 2004, as of 2013 he teaches at DOverbroecks College, Oxford. Mackies other daughter, Hilary, is a classicist at Rice University, Mackie was best known for his contributions to the fields of meta-ethics, philosophy of religion, and metaphysics. His perhaps most widely known work, Ethics, Inventing Right and Wrong and he uses several arguments to support this claim that objective values are false. He argues that aspects of moral thought are relative. Most of all, he thinks it is unclear how objective values could supervene on features of the natural world. Fourth, he thinks it would be difficult to justify our knowledge of value entities or account for any links or consequences they would have. And, finally, he thinks it is possible to show even without any objective values. The Times called the book a discussion of moral theory which. Concerning religion, he was known for vigorously defending atheism

5.
Max Stirner
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Johann Kaspar Schmidt, better known as Max Stirner, was a German philosopher. He is often seen as one of the forerunners of nihilism, existentialism, psychoanalytic theory, postmodernism, Stirners main work is The Ego and Its Own, also known as The Ego and His Own. This work was first published in 1845 in Leipzig, and has appeared in numerous editions and translations. Stirner was born in Bayreuth, Bavaria, Stirner was the only child of Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt and Sophia Elenora Reinlein. His father died of tuberculosis on April 19,1807 at the age of 37, in 1809 his mother remarried to Heinrich Ballerstedt, a pharmacist, and settled in West Prussian Kulm. When Stirner turned 20, he attended the University of Berlin, where he studied philology, philosophy and he attended the lectures of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who was to become a source of inspiration for his thinking. He attended Hegels lectures on the history of philosophy, the philosophy of religion, Stirner then moved to the University of Erlangen, which he attended at the same time as Ludwig Feuerbach. Stirner returned to Berlin and obtained a certificate, but was unable to obtain a full-time teaching post from the Prussian government. While in Berlin in 1841, Stirner participated in discussions with a group of young philosophers called Die Freien, and whom historians have subsequently categorized as the Young Hegelians. Some of the best known names in nineteenth century literature and philosophy were involved with this group, including Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Bruno Bauer, contrary to popular belief, Feuerbach was not a member of Die Freien, although he was heavily involved in Young Hegelian discourse. Feuerbach and Bauer led this charge, frequently the debates would take place at Hippels, a wine bar in Friedrichstraße, attended by, among others, Marx and Engels, who were both adherents of Feuerbach at the time. Stirner met with Engels many times, and Engels even recalled that they were great friends and it does not appear that Stirner contributed much to the discussions, but he was a faithful member of the club and an attentive listener. The most-often reproduced portrait of Stirner is a cartoon by Engels and it is highly likely that this and the group sketch of Die Freien at Hippels are the only firsthand images of Stirner. He resigned from his position in anticipation of controversy from this works publication in October 1844. His first wife was a servant, with whom he fell in love at an early age. She died from complications with pregnancy in 1838, soon after their marriage, in 1843 he married Marie Dähnhardt, an intellectual associated with Die Freien. The Ego and Its Own was dedicated to my sweetheart Marie Dähnhardt, Marie later converted to Catholicism and died in 1902 in London. Stirner planned and financed an attempt by some Young Hegelians to own and this enterprise failed partly because the dairy farmers were suspicious of these well-dressed intellectuals

6.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869, Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life, and he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and he lived his remaining years in the care of his mother, and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, and died in 1900. Nietzsches body of work touched widely on art, philology, history, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from figures such as Schopenhauer, Wagner. His writing spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism, born on 15 October 1844, Nietzsche grew up in the small town of Röcken, near Leipzig, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He was named after King Frederick William IV of Prussia, who turned forty-nine on the day of Nietzsches birth, Nietzsches parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, a Lutheran pastor and former teacher, and Franziska Oehler, married in 1843, the year before their sons birth. They had two children, a daughter, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, born in 1846, and a second son, Ludwig Joseph. Nietzsches father died from an ailment in 1849, Ludwig Joseph died six months later. The family then moved to Naumburg, where they lived with Nietzsches maternal grandmother, after the death of Nietzsches grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house, now Nietzsche-Haus, a museum and Nietzsche study centre. Nietzsche attended a school and then, later, a private school, where he became friends with Gustav Krug, Rudolf Wagner. In 1854, he began to attend Domgymnasium in Naumburg, because his father had worked for the state the now-fatherless Nietzsche was offered a scholarship to study at the internationally recognized Schulpforta. He transferred and studied there from 1858 to 1864, becoming friends with Paul Deussen and he also found time to work on poems and musical compositions. Nietzsche led Germania, a music and literature club, during his summers in Naumburg. His end-of-semester exams in March 1864 showed a 1 in Religion and German, a 2a in Greek and Latin, a 2b in French, History, and Physics, while at Pforta, Nietzsche had a penchant for pursuing subjects that were considered unbecoming. The teacher who corrected the essay gave it a mark but commented that Nietzsche should concern himself in the future with healthier, more lucid. After graduation in September 1864, Nietzsche commenced studies in theology, for a short time he and Deussen became members of the Burschenschaft Frankonia. After one semester, he stopped his studies and lost his faith. In June 1865, at the age of 20, Nietzsche wrote to his sister Elisabeth, who was deeply religious, a letter regarding his loss of faith

7.
James Flynn (academic)
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The Flynn Effect is the subject of a multiple author monograph published by the American Psychological Association in 1998. Originally from Washington DC and educated in Chicago, Flynn immigrated to New Zealand in 1963, Flynns son Victor is a mathematics professor at New College, Oxford. Flynn has written a variety of books and his research interests include humane ideals and ideological debate, classics of political philosophy, and race, class and IQ. His books combine political and moral philosophy with psychology to examine problems such as justifying humane ideals and he is currently a member of the editorial board of Intelligence and on the Honorary International Advisory Editorial Board of the Mens Sana Monographs. In 1987, Arthur Jensen praised Flynns criticism of Jensens own work in a chapter summarizing an academic book about Jensens research on human intelligence. Now and then I am asked by colleagues, students, and journalists, the name James R. Flynn is by far the first that comes to mind. A1999 article published in American Psychologist, summarises much of his research, on the alleged genetic inferiority of Blacks on IQ tests, he lays out the argument and evidence for such a belief, and then contests each point. He interprets the direct evidence—when Blacks are raised in settings that are less disadvantageous—as suggesting that environmental factors explain genetic differences, and yet, he argues that the environmental explanation gained force after the discovery that IQ scores were rising over time. All of us who wrestle with the difficult questions about intelligence that Flynn discusses are in his debt. He only urges those with related beliefs to refrain from advancing them without solid evidence, Flynns 2010 book The Torchlight List proposes the controversial idea that a person can learn more from reading great works of literature than they can from going to university. Flynn has described himself as an atheist, a scientific realist, the Flynn effect is the name given to a substantial and long-sustained increase in intelligence test scores measured in many parts of the world. When IQ tests are revised they are again standardised using a new sample of test-takers, again, the average result is set to 100. However, when the new test subjects take the older tests, test score increases have been continuous and approximately linear from the earliest years of testing to the present. For the Ravens Progressive Matrices test, subjects born over a 100-year period were compared in Des Moines, Iowa, improvements were remarkably consistent across the whole period, in both countries. This effect of an apparent increase in IQ has also observed in various other parts of the world. There are numerous proposed explanations of the Flynn effect, as well as some scepticism about its implications, similar improvements have been reported for other cognitions such as semantic and episodic memory. Flynn campaigns passionately for left-wing causes, and became a member of both the NewLabour Party and of the Alliance. He also advised Labour Prime Minister Norman Kirk on foreign policy, in 2008 he acted as the Alliance spokesperson for finance and taxation

8.
Agnosticism
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Agnosticism is the philosophical view that the existence of God or the supernatural are unknown and unknowable. Agnosticism is a doctrine or set of rather than a religion. English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word agnostic in 1869, the Nasadiya Sukta in the Rigveda is agnostic about the origin of the universe. Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern and it simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe. Consequently, agnosticism puts aside not only the part of popular theology. On the whole, the bosh of heterodoxy is more offensive to me than that of orthodoxy, because heterodoxy professes to be guided by reason and science, and orthodoxy does not. Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, positively the principle may be expressed, In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively, In matters of the intellect do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable, being a scientist, above all else, Huxley presented agnosticism as a form of demarcation. A hypothesis with no supporting objective, testable evidence is not an objective, as such, there would be no way to test said hypotheses, leaving the results inconclusive. His agnosticism was not compatible with forming a belief as to the truth, or falsehood, karl Popper would also describe himself as an agnostic. Others have redefined this concept, making it compatible with forming a belief, george H. Smith rejects agnosticism as a third alternative to theism and atheism and promotes terms such as agnostic atheism and agnostic theism. Agnostic was used by Thomas Henry Huxley in a speech at a meeting of the Metaphysical Society in 1869 to describe his philosophy, early Christian church leaders used the Greek word gnosis to describe spiritual knowledge. Agnosticism is not to be confused with religious views opposing the ancient religious movement of Gnosticism in particular, Huxley used the term in a broader, Huxley identified agnosticism not as a creed but rather as a method of skeptical, evidence-based inquiry. In recent years, scientific literature dealing with neuroscience and psychology has used the word to mean not knowable, in technical and marketing literature, agnostic can also mean independence from some parameters—for example, platform agnostic or hardware agnostic. Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume contended that meaningful statements about the universe are always qualified by some degree of doubt and he asserted that the fallibility of human beings means that they cannot obtain absolute certainty except in trivial cases where a statement is true by definition. A strong agnostic would say, I cannot know whether a deity exists or not, a weak agnostic would say, I dont know whether any deities exist or not, but maybe one day, if there is evidence, we can find something out. Therefore, their existence has little to no impact on human affairs. Agnostic thought, in the form of skepticism, emerged as a philosophical position in ancient Greece

9.
Emotivism
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Emotivism is a meta-ethical view that claims that ethical sentences do not express propositions but emotional attitudes. Hence, it is known as the hurrah/boo theory. Emotivism can be considered a form of non-cognitivism or expressivism and it stands in opposition to other forms of non-cognitivism, as well as to all forms of cognitivism. In the 1950s, emotivism appeared in a form in the universal prescriptivism of R. M. Hare. Emotivism reached prominence in the early 20th century, but it was born centuries earlier, in 1710, George Berkeley wrote that language in general often serves to inspire feelings as well as communicate ideas. Decades later, David Hume espoused ideas similar to Stevensons later ones, … While we are ignorant whether a man were aggressor or not, how can we determine whether the person who killed him be criminal or innocent. But after every circumstance, every relation is known, the understanding has no room to operate. The approbation or blame which then ensues, cannot be the work of the judgement, but of the heart, and is not a proposition or affirmation. G. E. Moore published his Principia Ethica in 1903, Moore was a cognitivist, but his case against ethical naturalism steered other philosophers toward noncognitivism, particularly emotivism. This criterion was fundamental to A. J. Ayers defense of positivism in Language, Truth and Logic, which contains his statement of emotivism. However, positivism is not essential to emotivism itself, perhaps not even in Ayers form, and some positivists in the Vienna Circle, but I was never an emotivist, though I have often been called one. But unlike most of their opponents I saw that it was their irrationalism, not their non-descriptivism, influential statements of emotivism were made by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards in their 1923 book on language, The Meaning of Meaning, however, it is the later works of Ayer and especially Stevenson that are the most developed and discussed defenses of the theory. A. J. Ayers version of emotivism is given in six, Critique of Ethics and Theology, of Language, Truth. While class three statements were irrelevant to Ayers brand of emotivism, they would play a significant role in Stevensons. Ayer argues that moral judgments cannot be translated into non-ethical, empirical terms and thus cannot be verified, but he differs from intuitionists by discarding appeals to intuition as worthless for determining moral truths, since the intuition of one person often contradicts that of another. Instead, Ayer concludes that ethical concepts are mere pseudo-concepts, The presence of a symbol in a proposition adds nothing to its factual content. Thus if I say to someone, You acted wrongly in stealing money, I am not stating anything more than if I had simply said

10.
Conspiracy theory
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Conspiracy theories often produce hypotheses that contradict the prevailing understanding of history or simple facts. The term is a derogatory one, people formulate conspiracy theories to explain, for example, power relations in social groups and the perceived existence of evil forces. Conspiracy theories have chiefly psychological or socio-political origins, some people prefer socio-political explanations over the insecurity of encountering random, unpredictable, or otherwise inexplicable events. Some philosophers have argued that belief in conspiracy theories can be rational, the Oxford English Dictionary defines conspiracy theory as the theory that an event or phenomenon occurs as a result of a conspiracy between interested parties, spec. A belief that some covert but influential agency is responsible for an unexplained event, as a neutral term, conspiracy is derived from Latin con- and spirare. In many respects, they have a right to be angry, the phrase conspiracy theory is not neutral. It is value-laden and carries with it condemnation, ridicule, and it is a lot like the word cult, which we use to describe religions we do not like. Clare Birchall at Kings College London describes conspiracy theory as a form of knowledge or interpretation. By acquiring the knowledge, conspiracy theory is considered alongside more legitimate modes of knowing. The relationship between legitimate and illegitimate knowledge, Birchall claims, is far closer than common dismissals of conspiracy theory would have us believe, other popular knowledge might include alien abduction narratives, gossip, some new age philosophies, religious beliefs, and astrology. Harry G. West discusses conspiracy theories as a part of American popular culture, comparing them to hypernationalism, some theories have dealt with censorship and excoriation from the law such as the Holocaust denial. Currently, conspiracy theories are present on the Web in the form of blogs and YouTube videos. Whether the Web has increased the prevalence of conspiracy theories or not is a research question. By contrast, the term Watergate conspiracy theory is used to refer to a variety of hypotheses in which those convicted in the conspiracy were in fact the victims of a deeper conspiracy. In criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future, as one basic American police academy text defines it, When a crime requires a large number of people, a conspiracy is formed. Conspiracy theory examines the actions of secretive coalitions of individuals. S, sociologist Türkay Salim Nefes underlines the political nature of conspiracy theories. He suggests that one of the most important characteristics of these accounts is their attempt to unveil the real, according to Barkun, the appeal of conspiracism is threefold, First, conspiracy theories claim to explain what institutional analysis cannot. They appear to sense out of a world that is otherwise confusing

11.
Cambridge University Press
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Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the worlds oldest publishing house and it also holds letters patent as the Queens Printer. The Presss mission is To further the Universitys mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, Cambridge University Press is a department of the University of Cambridge and is both an academic and educational publisher. With a global presence, publishing hubs, and offices in more than 40 countries. Its publishing includes journals, monographs, reference works, textbooks. Cambridge University Press is an enterprise that transfers part of its annual surplus back to the university. Cambridge University Press is both the oldest publishing house in the world and the oldest university press and it originated from Letters Patent granted to the University of Cambridge by Henry VIII in 1534, and has been producing books continuously since the first University Press book was printed. Cambridge is one of the two privileged presses, authors published by Cambridge have included John Milton, William Harvey, Isaac Newton, Bertrand Russell, and Stephen Hawking. In 1591, Thomass successor, John Legate, printed the first Cambridge Bible, the London Stationers objected strenuously, claiming that they had the monopoly on Bible printing. The universitys response was to point out the provision in its charter to print all manner of books. In July 1697 the Duke of Somerset made a loan of £200 to the university towards the house and presse and James Halman, Registrary of the University. It was in Bentleys time, in 1698, that a body of scholars was appointed to be responsible to the university for the Presss affairs. The Press Syndicates publishing committee still meets regularly, and its role still includes the review, John Baskerville became University Printer in the mid-eighteenth century. Baskervilles concern was the production of the finest possible books using his own type-design, a technological breakthrough was badly needed, and it came when Lord Stanhope perfected the making of stereotype plates. This involved making a mould of the surface of a page of type. The Press was the first to use this technique, and in 1805 produced the technically successful, under the stewardship of C. J. Clay, who was University Printer from 1854 to 1882, the Press increased the size and scale of its academic and educational publishing operation. An important factor in this increase was the inauguration of its list of schoolbooks, during Clays administration, the Press also undertook a sizable co-publishing venture with Oxford, the Revised Version of the Bible, which was begun in 1870 and completed in 1885. It was Wright who devised the plan for one of the most distinctive Cambridge contributions to publishing—the Cambridge Histories, the Cambridge Modern History was published between 1902 and 1912

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Harvard University Press
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Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13,1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles and it is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P. Sisler and the editor-in-chief is Susan Wallace Boehmer, the press maintains offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Harvard Square, in New York City, and in London, England. The Display Room in Harvard Square, dedicated to selling HUP publications, HUP owns the Belknap Press imprint, which it inaugurated in May 1954 with the publication of the Harvard Guide to American History. The John Harvard Library book series is published under the Belknap imprint, Harvard University Press distributes the Loeb Classical Library and is the publisher of the I Tatti Renaissance Library, the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, and the Murty Classical Library of India. It is distinct from Harvard Business Press, which is part of Harvard Business Publishing, category, Harvard University Press books Hall, Max. Official website Blog of Harvard University Press

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Oxford University Press
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Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world, and the second oldest after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the known as the delegates of the press. They are headed by the secretary to the delegates, who serves as OUPs chief executive, Oxford University has used a similar system to oversee OUP since the 17th century. The university became involved in the print trade around 1480, and grew into a printer of Bibles, prayer books. OUP took on the project became the Oxford English Dictionary in the late 19th century. Moves into international markets led to OUP opening its own offices outside the United Kingdom, by contracting out its printing and binding operations, the modern OUP publishes some 6,000 new titles around the world each year. OUP was first exempted from United States corporation tax in 1972, as a department of a charity, OUP is exempt from income tax and corporate tax in most countries, but may pay sales and other commercial taxes on its products. The OUP today transfers 30% of its surplus to the rest of the university. OUP is the largest university press in the world by the number of publications, publishing more than 6,000 new books every year, the Oxford University Press Museum is located on Great Clarendon Street, Oxford. Visits must be booked in advance and are led by a member of the archive staff, displays include a 19th-century printing press, the OUP buildings, and the printing and history of the Oxford Almanack, Alice in Wonderland and the Oxford English Dictionary. The first printer associated with Oxford University was Theoderic Rood, the first book printed in Oxford, in 1478, an edition of Rufinuss Expositio in symbolum apostolorum, was printed by another, anonymous, printer. Famously, this was mis-dated in Roman numerals as 1468, thus apparently pre-dating Caxton, roods printing included John Ankywylls Compendium totius grammaticae, which set new standards for teaching of Latin grammar. After Rood, printing connected with the university remained sporadic for over half a century, the chancellor, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, pleaded Oxfords case. Some royal assent was obtained, since the printer Joseph Barnes began work, Oxfords chancellor, Archbishop William Laud, consolidated the legal status of the universitys printing in the 1630s. Laud envisaged a unified press of world repute, Oxford would establish it on university property, govern its operations, employ its staff, determine its printed work, and benefit from its proceeds. To that end, he petitioned Charles I for rights that would enable Oxford to compete with the Stationers Company and the Kings Printer and these were brought together in Oxfords Great Charter in 1636, which gave the university the right to print all manner of books. Laud also obtained the privilege from the Crown of printing the King James or Authorized Version of Scripture at Oxford and this privilege created substantial returns in the next 250 years, although initially it was held in abeyance. The Stationers Company was deeply alarmed by the threat to its trade, under this, the Stationers paid an annual rent for the university not to exercise its full printing rights – money Oxford used to purchase new printing equipment for smaller purposes

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MIT Press
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The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Six years later, MITs publishing operations were first formally instituted by the creation of an imprint called Technology Press in 1932 and this imprint was founded by James R. Killian, Jr. at the time editor of MITs alumni magazine and later to become MIT president. Technology Press published eight titles independently, then in 1937 entered into an arrangement with John Wiley & Sons in which Wiley took over marketing, in 1962 the association with Wiley came to an end after a further 125 titles had been published. The press acquired its name after this separation, and has since functioned as an independent publishing house. A European marketing office was opened in 1969, and a Journals division was added in 1972, other areas, such as technology and design, have been added since. A recent addition is environmental science, in January 2010 the MIT Press published its 9000th title, and published about 200 books and 30 journals. In 2012 the Press celebrated its 50th anniversary, including publishing a booklet on paper. The MIT Press is a distributor for such publishers as Zone Books, in 2000, the MIT Press created CogNet, an online resource for the study of the brain and the cognitive sciences. In 1981 the MIT Press published its first book under the Bradford Books imprint, Brainstorms, Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology by Daniel C. The MIT Press also operates the MIT Press Bookstore showcasing both its front and backlist titles, along with a selection of complementary works from other academic. Once extensive construction around its location is completed, the Bookstore is planned to be returned to a site adjacent to the subway entrance. The Bookstore offers customized selections from the MIT Press at many conferences and symposia in the Boston area, the Press uses a colophon or logo designed by its longtime design director, Muriel Cooper, in 1962. It later served as an important reference point for the 2015 redesign of the MIT Media Lab logo by Pentagram, the Arts and Humanities Economics International Affairs, History, and Political Science Science and Technology Official Website MIT Press Journals Homepage The MIT PressLog

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Edward N. Zalta
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Edward N. Zalta is a Senior research scholar at the Center for the Study of Language and Information. He received his Ph. D. in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1980, Zalta has taught courses at Stanford University, Rice University, the University of Salzburg, and the University of Auckland. Zalta is also the Principal Editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Zaltas most notable philosophical position is descended from the position of Alexius Meinong and Ernst Mally, who suggested that there are many non-existent objects. On Zaltas account, some objects exemplify properties, while others merely encode them, while the objects that exemplify properties are discovered through traditional empirical means, a simple set of axioms allows us to know about objects that encode properties. For every set of properties, there is one object that encodes exactly that set of properties. This allows for a formalized ontology

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PhilPapers
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PhilPapers is an international, interactive academic database of journal articles for professionals and students in philosophy. It is maintained by the Centre for Digital Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario, as of 2012, the general editors are David Bourget and David Chalmers. It has a position in the world ranking of repositories. PhilPapers receives financial support from organizations, including a substantial grant in early 2009 from the Joint Information Systems Committee in the United Kingdom. The archive is praised for its comprehensiveness and organization, and for its regular updates, in addition to archiving papers, the editors engage in surveying academic philosophers. List of academic databases and search engines Official website

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Academic skepticism
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Unlike the existing school of skepticism, the Pyrrhonists, they maintained that knowledge of things is impossible. Ideas or notions are never true, nevertheless, there are degrees of probability, and hence degrees of belief, the school was characterized by its attacks on the Stoics and on their belief in convincing impressions which lead to true knowledge. The most important Academic skeptics were Arcesilaus, Carneades, and Philo of Larissa, greek skepticism, as a distinct school, began with Pyrrho of Elis, about whom very little is known. His followers, the Pyrrhonists, maintained that our theories and our sense impressions were unable to distinguish truth from falsehood. They were consistent enough to extend their doubt even to their own principle of doubt and they thus attempted to make their skepticism universal, and to escape the reproach of basing it upon a fresh dogmatism. Mental imperturbability was the result to be attained by cultivating such a frame of mind, around 266 BC, Arcesilaus became head of the Platonic Academy, and adopted skepticism as a central tenet of Platonism. This skeptical period of ancient Platonism, from Arcesilaus to Philo of Larissa, became known as the New Academy, although some ancient authors added further subdivisions, the Academic skeptics do not seem to have doubted the existence of truth in itself, only the capacities for obtaining it. The attitude maintained by the Academics contained a criticism of the views of others. But they acknowledged some vestiges of a law within, at best but a probable guide. Up to Arcesilaus, the Platonic Academy accepted the principle of finding a general unity in all things, Arcesilaus, however, broke new ground by attacking the very possibility of certainty. Socrates had said, This alone I know, that I know nothing, but Arcesilaus went farther and denied the possibility of even the Socratic minimum of certainty, I cannot know even whether I know or not. Arcesilaus held that strength of intellectual conviction cannot be regarded as valid, the uncertainty of sense data applies equally to the conclusions of reason, and therefore man must be content with probability which is sufficient as a practical guide. We know nothing, not even our ignorance, therefore the man will be content with an agnostic attitude. The next stage in Academic skepticism was the moderate skepticism of Carneades, which he said owed its existence to his opposition to Chrysippus, Carneades is the most important of the Academic skeptics. All our sensations are relative, and acquaint us, not with things as they are, experience, he said, clearly shows that there is no true impression. There is no notion that may not deceive us, it is impossible to distinguish between false and true impressions, therefore the Stoic phantasia kataleptike must be given up, there is no phantasia kataleptike of truth. Carneades also assailed Stoic theology and physics, there is, he concluded, no evidence for the doctrine of a divine superintending providence. Even if there were orderly connexion of parts in the universe, no proof can be advanced to show that this world is anything but the product of natural forces

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Skeptical movement
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The skeptical movement is a modern social movement promoting the idea of scientific skepticism. The process followed is referred to as skeptical inquiry. Medical quackery was also targeted by such as the Dutch Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij. The Belgian Comité Para has been deemed the oldest broad mandate skeptical organization, using that organization as a template, in 1976, Paul Kurtz and Marcello Truzzi founded the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry in Amherst, New York. The North American skeptical organization, which provides journals and publications, Scientific skepticism is different from philosophical skepticism, which questions our ability to claim any knowledge about the nature of the world and how we perceive it. Methodological skepticism, a process of being skeptical about the truth of ones beliefs, is similar. The New Skepticism described by Paul Kurtz is scientific skepticism, for example, Robert K. Merton asserts that all ideas must be tested and are subject to rigorous, structured community scrutiny. According to Hammer, the forebears of the modern skeptical movement are rather to be found among the many writers throughout history who have argued against beliefs they did not share. Skepticism values method over any particular conclusion, Skepticism is a provisional approach to claims. It is the application of reason to any and all ideas—no sacred cows allowed, in other words, skepticism is a method, not a position. With regard to the social movement, Loxton refers to other movements already promoting humanism, atheism, rationalism, science education. He saw the demand for the new movement of people called skeptics — being based on a lack of interest by the scientific community to address paranormal. In line with Kendrick Frazier, he describes the movement as a surrogate in that area for institutional science, the movement in so far set up a distinct field of study and provided an organizational structure, while long-standing genre of individual skeptical activities lacked such a community and background. However, skeptical organizations do typically tend to have education and promotion among their goals. Scientific skeptics maintain that empirical investigation of reality leads to the truth, Scientific skeptics attempt to evaluate claims based on verifiability and falsifiability and discourage accepting claims on faith or anecdotal evidence. Skeptics often focus their criticism on claims they consider to be implausible, Skepticism in general may be deemed part of the scientific method, for instance an experimental result is not regarded as established until it can be shown to be repeatable independently. Some leaders of the movement, including Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins, the movement has had issues with sexism. It was raised in a 1985 skeptic newsletter by Mary Coulman and this became known as Elevatorgate, based on Watsons discussion about being propositioned in a hotel elevator in the early morning after a skeptic event

Cambridge University Press (CUP) is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by …

The University Printing House, on the main site of the press

The letters patent of Cambridge University Press by Henry VIII allow the press to print "all manner of books". The fine initial with the king's portrait inside it and the large first line of script are still discernible.

The Pitt Building in Cambridge, which used to be the headquarters of Cambridge University Press, and now serves as a conference centre for the press

Hume asks, given knowledge of the way the universe is, in what sense can we say it ought to be different?

Few debate that one ought to run quickly if one's goal is to win a race. A tougher question may be whether one "morally ought" to want to win a race in the first place.

Even if oughts can be understood in relation to goals or needs, the greater challenge of ethical systems remains that of defining the nature and origins of the good, and in what sense one ought to pursue it.